Paper

Electronic

There are bunch programs for this. I can’t even keep up anymore. Some are online only, so you’d have to be on a computer to enter your day’s observations. Well, that may be okay for some but there are good reasons not to be on a computer every night.

So, maybe paper is better — unless you have a smartphone.

For that, here are four programs as of 12/2014. This landscape is changing extremely fast. I don’t expect to keep up. You can, though!

1. Suppose all you wanted to do was rate your mood every day (not sleep, exercise, or anxiety). That might make it so simple you’d actually do it most of the time! MoodPanda.

2. If you want to chart mood and sleep and anxiety, and have your fully private results support a research effort (with daily reminders to chart, which is nice if you need it and can be turned off if you don’t): BeatingBipolar.

3. However, if you want a full program that’s been revised for several years, now very slick, that may be the Optimism program (desktop/laptop, or handheld, Apple or Windows). This is a commercial grade product. I don’t know how they are managing to offer this for free. Maybe because they’re marketing it for clinicians?

4. THE ULTIMATE? Imagine a program which not only allows you to enter your own data but also uses your Android to summarize the frequency of your phone calls, texts, and exercise (and even just how much you move around on average). I’m just starting to experiment with the recently available version of this approach that’s been in research for nearly 5 years: Emotion Sense . Part of a research program, free, looks good so far.

In our office we’ve experimented with FitBit and several smartphone sleep-monitoring programs. None is quite good enough (simple, accurate) as of 11/2014.